Three ways employers can support refugees during hiring.

May 22, 2023

Over the last decade, the number of refugees in the world has more than tripled, from 10.5 million in 2012 to 32.5 million in 2022, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

And in 2022 the world reached a grim milestone: perhaps for the first time in history, there were more than 100 million forcibly displaced people on earth. The UNHCR calculates that 1 out of every 78 people alive today has been forced to feel their home.

As the number of forcibly displaced people is expected to remain high, in part due to intensifying climate change, there is growing pressure on workforce systems to respond.

While conditions vary across countries, there is a growing consensus that both refugees and host countries benefit when refugees work. But refugees face obstacles to work ranging from restrictive laws to skills mismatches.

Ensuring that refugees can work will take complex, coordinated action across governments, education systems, businesses, and industry groups. But there is much that employers can do now to help.

While employers may be motivated by a moral imperative, employers stand to benefit too when they hire refugees. Refugees can bring new ways of thinking. They can bring access to international social networks that can expand a business globally. And there’s evidence that refugees tend to stay with employers longer than employees on average, improving employee retention.

1. Be flexible about language requirements for job candidates living in refugee circumstances.

Many refugees, especially if they have recently arrived in a host country, are learning a new language. Thus, applicants in refugee circumstances may struggle when interviews are conducted in the dominant language of the host country.

As part of its response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has advised employers to “reduce reliance on language in hiring.” Similarly, in a guide for tech industries, MIT’s Refugee Action Hub, or ReACT, encourages employers to offer language support during interviews. ReACT also urges that, if possible, employers should offer to conduct interviews in the applicant’s native spoken language.

“Candidates may meet the language level you need in the role,” according to ReACT, “but their level may be below what’s needed to express oneself really well in a far-reaching and more nuanced conversation that is also high-pressure.”

There are also other ways to accommodate language differences during hiring. For example, according to the WEF, IKEA Switzerland has foregone interviews for refugees, instead offering applicants a five-day trial period to work.

Beyond interviews, companies may be able to offer language support for a multilingual workforce day by day. The WEF proposes “language buddy programs” for workers—programs which can help refugees not only communicate on the job but learn a language too.

2.   Focus on skills and accept alternate credentials, like microcredentials, or waive credential requirements entirely.

Often forced to flee quickly, refugees may lack access to credential documents that have been left behind. Even when refugees do have documents, employers may struggle to assess them. Credentials may be in unfamiliar languages or may have been issued by unfamiliar education systems.

As a result, refugees are much more likely to be overqualified for the jobs they take than are other populations. For example, an OECD report has found that in Europe 60% of employed tertiary-educated refugees were overqualified, a percentage more than double that of native-born people with the same educational attainment.

For reasons like these, the WEF urges employers to focus on skills not degrees and to accept alternate credentials, like microcredentials for online programs. Another option is for employers to assess relevant skills through alternate means.

In a guide for U.S. employers, Tent Partnership for Refugees suggests that employers could waive credential requirements and, instead, “evaluate skills during on-the-job training or offer competency-based promotions.” (Tent offers a range of relevant hiring guidebooks targeting employers worldwide.)

The WEF has also singled out a new credential being offered by UNESCO, called Qualifications Passport for Refugees and Vulnerable Migrants. Through a standardized evaluation, which can include interviews, the Qualifications Passport offers refugees a reliable credential that verifies their educational history even when they are missing typical documentation.

3. Write job postings and design resume screenings with refugees in mind.

In their hiring guide, MIT ReACT advises that job postings should use “inclusive language” and should explicitly invite people in refugee circumstances to apply.

According to ReACT, inclusive language in a job posting entails clarifying “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” so that people who have not had equal access to opportunities are not needlessly excluded. For the same reasons, ReACT urges employers to consider removing years of experience and non-essential educational requirements. Other guides for writing inclusive job postings offer similar suggestions.

Both ReACT and Tent highlight that standardized resume screenings risk discriminately excluding refugees. Refugees may have gaps in their education and work histories. They may have worked in jobs for short periods. They may have worked multiple jobs concurrently. And they may have required skills but lack experience because jobs in their desired fields have not been available to them.

ReACT proposes that employers can ask applicants to disclose voluntarily whether they are living in “refugee circumstances” or “displacement circumstances.” Then, with this information, an employer can better assess what would, in other cases, seem like weaknesses in a resume. But, ReACT emphasizes, employers should not ask job candidates if they are “refugees”: “It’s a subtle but important distinction so candidates know their circumstances are part of the picture but don’t define them.

These are three steps that employers can take to make hiring more inclusive for refugees, but this is only a partial list. 

Employers may also need to be knowledgeable about differences in communication styles across cultures. Conflicts between implicit and explicit communication styles is broadly considered a barrier for refugees. 

Employers too need to be prepared to make workplace accommodations. For example, in reporting on U.S. companies that have hired refugees from Afghanistan, the Society for Human Resource Management has documented that employers have made accommodations such as designating spaces as prayer rooms, providing for employees’ transportation to work. 

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